Maryland Department of Education's new 'Report Card' shows mixed results for state's public schools
MARYLAND - The Maryland Department of Education released its school report cards Wednesday.
Each public school in the state got a grade. The overall results show a mixed bag but the state made it clear that this year was a tough one to assess.
The department stresses that they changed some components of the way they’re evaluating schools.
For instance, a brand new 8th grade studies evaluation was part of the formula, as well as an academic growth indicator for elementary and middle schools.
A key factor that was a bigger part of the equation this year was absenteeism in schools — something districts are still dealing with after the pandemic.
Given all that, the number of five-star schools has decreased in the state but the number of four-star schools remained flat, and three-star schools jumped significantly.
Chandra Haislet is the Assistant State Superintendent of Assessments and Accountability for the Department of Education. She stresses every school is different but given some of the changes, she says this is a new baseline — especially post-pandemic.
"With every report card release, that is a comprehensive look at where a school is in that space, that year, it’s always important to look at this is our data for this year, what do we need to do to improve and move the work of the school forward and really work on improving those schools," Haislet said.
FOX 5 spoke with Evelyn Chung, speaking as a Montgomery County parent and education advocate.
She says she supports the state’s transparency with these grades but stresses it needs to come with additional funding and resources to districts for things like tutoring, substitute teachers and the best educational materials for students.
"Using some of these external standards is going to help. Again though, the concern is when you start to incorporate it and it punishes the students. That’s a problem because, obviously, if your literacy rates are 50% in the 8th grade, they’re going into high school already behind," Chung said.
"So the question is what happened from K-8? So that’s where I’d like to see a little more, harder substantive funding and pushing for better curriculum funding and staffing," she continued.
There is some good news too.
The state says English test scores are back to pre-pandemic levels but math does still lag behind. They also say the absenteeism issue is a problem but getting better state-wide.